*Motorcycle Roads NorthWest

For those not from Western Washington, State Route 503 may need a bit of explanation. This road starts over at Interstate 5 and heads East to the village of Yale, then turns to the South and down towards Vancouver, Washington. While the West Leg of 503 is a nice little road, it’s becoming increasingly urbanized and widened and is not a topic for today. For our purposes, we’ll discuss the South Leg of Washington State Route 503.

South of Yale, 503 twists around in a surprisingly delightful fashion much like FS25 or FS90. To get curves this nice, one generally has to go to Idaho, as even the forest service roads have far worse pavement quality. The countryside up on the north end is a mix of heavy woods and semi-cleared scrubland, all overpoweringly green.

Once across the Lewis River, it settles down more into what one expects out of a Western Washington rural state highway. The curves are more “sweeper” than “twisty” with a few notable 90-degree exceptions. The countryside is vastly different too, with more open farmlands and more people.

Ultimately, of course, this road ends down in Vancouver. Pretty much straight down at that end, it’s busy and suburban. But if you’re heading north and you can put up with that for a mile or two, it’s a road that’s well worth the trip.

• County: Clark & Cowlitz Counties, Washington
• Length: 30 miles (and another 5 miles up to Cougar & FS90)
• Towns: Yale, Chelatchie, Amboy, Fargher Lake, Brush Prairie, Union

Google Map of Washington Route 503:

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The scene is set in the late Spring of 2007. A year not known for summery weather at best, it was decided that a trip out of Hurricane Ridge was in order. My wife has been demanding such a visit for years, and I was in no position to argue over such a visit.

None of the names of the roads leading up there really convey the sense of the trip. It certainly has curvy bits and quite excellent ones, for sure. It also ascends 5200 feet in about 21 miles, right from absolute sea level at the shore of the Strait of Juan de Fuca to over 5200 feet at the Hurrican Ridge Visitor Center. I’m not entirely sure, because my GPS lost tracking at one point in the middle of a cloud, but the altimeter read around 6,000 at one point.

I would also be on a sharp lookout for hooved rats, you know: Deer. Those foul vermin that attack motorcycles: They’re everywhere up there in the park, probably because they know they can’t be hunted up there.

This road is also slightly tough to classify. It definitely has some sweepers on it, especially in the lower half of the mountains. The curves at the top are rather nice, but they’re not exactly on par with the squiggles of St. Helens FS99 either. I’m going to make another trip up there when the weather is not so completely miserable (38F at the visitor center in late May), and we’ll see how it goes.

Some pictures from my 2007 visit:

View back along Heart o’ the Hills Road from the Hurricane Ridge Visitors Center.

A view into the real Heart of the Olympic Range.

A bit of hiking trail on the south side of the road, around 4000′.

A viewpoint about 1/3 of the way to the top. You can see the Dungeness Spit in Sequim from one of these pullouts.

• County:
• Length: 18 miles
• Towns: Port Angeles

Microsoft Streets & Trips File for Heart o’ the Hills Road & Hurricane Ridge

Overview Map:

Google Map:

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Another favorite of Seattle area motorcyclists, this is an nice backroad that gets you off the main routes and away from most of the cagers. Like much of the area, it’s starting to suburbanize and has far more luxury houses than it did 5 years ago.

• Towns: Granite Falls, Monroe
• Length: 20 miles
• County: Snohomish

Microsoft Streets & Trips file

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Google Map:

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This little stretch of sweepers is quite a bit of fun and a nice way to skirt a large section of Interstate 5. While it’s 35 mile per hour speed limit causes it to be a rather leisurely way to cover this distance, it is also fairly empty and doesn’t appear to be heavily patrolled.

South Military Road route is veritably lined with evergreen trees. I estimate there is at most an eight foot buffer between the road and the forest in most sections. The buffer does help quite a bit in spotting the numerous deer that line the road. If the deer are hiding in the tree line in preparation for their kamikaze dash in front of your bike, you’re going to have very little response time before impact.

One note of caution for those looking to blast down this road at wildly extra-legal speeds, I’ve never seen any evidence of repaving in the years that I’ve been riding this road down to Portland. It looks like a very old alignment of US 99 that has been asphalted over, tar-snaked as needed, and otherwise left to slowly rot in place.

Like Jackson Highway, this road is another great means to avoid the thundering herd on 5 and take a more relaxed 4th-gear approach to traveling. This scenery isn’t spectacular and the service sparse, but your blood pressure will likely be much lower on this road. Just look out for the deer.

As you arrive east of Vader, things are a little different. Starting where Military Road crosses over Route 507, the road changes its name to Westside Highway and is still a state highway in this area. This road is maintained much better, and is far more frequently traveled. Obviously, it has less curves and wider lanes, but is still a pretty good way to avoid the lunacy that is
Interstate 5 in the late afternoon.

As you get to the terminus of SR411 at Kelso, you’ll need to head back east on SR4 to get across the river and back to I-5. If you’re heading south, you can go straight at SR4 and continue skirting around Longview and cross over the Columbia to Oregon via SR433.

• Towns: Napavine, Vader, Longview, Castle Rock, Winlock
• Length: 33 miles
• Counties: Lewis, Cowlitz

Microsoft Streets & Trips file

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Google Map:

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State Route 9 is one of Washington State’s finer examples of a rural highway. The curves are well-engineered and most of the curves have very good visibility. The pavement is very hig-quality, to the point of being in a shockingly well-maintained state from the viewpoint of this jaded Seattle moto-commuter.

There’s also no lack of scenery along SR9. All along this route you can simply turn your head to the east and take in the farmlands and ridges with the Cascade Range peaks as their backdrop.

Mt. Baker in the distance

North of Sedro Wooley, SR9 is a very fine road tailor-made for tearing up curves and covering ground. The curves are often linked 3-4 deep with gentle banking and neutral radius. Even more delightful is the 50mph speed limit outside the villages. The State Patrol often seems to place all of their emphasis on the parallel Interstate 5 freeway 15 miles away.

Speaking of high-quality road surface, the pavement is not only very smooth but also very grippy. It’s quite obviously been re-paved in the past year or two, as the road hasn’t been covered up with any tar snakes or become polished by traffic or numerous hot/cold cycles.

A brief straightaway south of Acme.

I’ve ridden this road on a couple different bikes now as well. This road is quite well-suited to sporting standards such as the FZ6 and the DL650 V-strom. While still quite enjoyable on larger/heavier bikes such as my old v4 Sabre 1100, the abrupt nature of some of the corner entries require a slightly more relaxed pace from less sporting machine.

One thing to keep in mind is that section south of Sedro-Wooley down toward Arlington is much more agricultural in nature than the north end. The curves are less-frequently wide sweepers or even twisties, but more in the vein of alternating 90-degree turns from the old farm to markey road that they must have preceded the current roadway. The corners have been smoothed out slightly, but are still 20-25mph 2nd gear turns compared to the 35-45mph twisties and speed-limit restricted 50-ish mph sweepers north of Sedro Wooley.

MS Streets & Trips file for Washington SR9

Overview Map for Washington State Route 9:

Google Map:

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